An area of Switzerland that became known as the ‘roundhouse of international spirits’ will form the basis of an extraordinary new exhibition of the same name at Kettle’s Yard.
An area of Switzerland that became known as the ‘roundhouse of international spirits’ will form the basis of an extraordinary new exhibition of the same name at Kettle’s Yard.
The only venue in the UK to display the exhibition before it travels to Switzerland, the Cambridge University museum will examine in detail the group of artists living in the Ticino, an Italian-speaking region of Switzerland in the late 1950s and early ’60s.
Artists and intellectuals from all over Europe began to flock there to join long-term resident, the poet and sculptor Hans Arp.
By the end of the 1950s, the Ticino was home to Ben Nicholson and his wife Felicitas Vogler, Julius Bissier and Italo Valenti. The American painter Mark Tobey, who lived in Basel, visited his artist friends in the region frequently.
Classical scholar Karl Kerényi and composer Wladimir Vogel also lived there. The Verscio atelier of paper- and print-maker François Lafranca, and the studio complex set up in Locarno by sculptor Remo Rossi provided attractive places to work and for the discussion of art, philosophy, literature and music.
Through some seventy artworks and a selection of archival material the exhibition will explore not only the work but also the broader cultural exchanges which occurred between these artists. It also touches upon the impact of their presence on the younger generation of local practitioners, represented here by sculptor Raffael Benazzi. A well-illustrated catalogue, with essays by Matthias Bärmann, Peter Khoroche and exhibition curator Sebastiano Barassi, accompanies the show.
The subject is particularly apt for both Kettle’s Yard, which regularly presents exhibitions with a bearing on its permanent collection (which includes numerous works by Arp, Nicholson and Valenti), and Ascona’s Museo comunale di arte moderna.
The exhibition includes pieces from both collections, as well as loans from Tate, Lugano’s Museo Cantonale d’Arte, National Galleries of Scotland, Fondazione Marguerite Arp, Archivio Julius Bissier, Archivio Italo Valenti, Raffael Benazzi and private collections.
The Roundhouse of International Spirits runs from January 17 to March 15, before moving to the Museo comunle di arte moderna, Ascona in Switzerland from March 28-June 28.
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